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Moral Clarity VII - Confidential Information

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Robert Wechsler

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008). Neiman’s discussion of Daniel Ellsberg, the government official who let us know
about the Pentagon Papers, shows the effect that access to confidential
information has on government officials. It’s very similar to the
effect of power.

First, you feel exhilarated by access to information you never even
knew existed. Almost as quickly, you feel like a fool: for
having analyzed these subjects for years without a clue about
information this crucial, for having worked daily with people who did
have access and kept the secrets so well. But once you get used to your
new access to whole libraries of hidden information, you are aware of
the fact that you have it and others don't — and view anyone else as a
fool to whom you, in turn, are bound to lie. ... You'll become
incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much
experience they may have in a particular area.

We tend to think of this problem occurring at the federal level, with
access to classified information. But the same thing happens at the
local level. High-level officials have access to people and information
others have little or no knowledge of. When citizens come before them,
many officials hardly listen, because they know how ignorant the
citizens are. Special knowledge can be one more way to justify acting
against the public interest, because only those who know all the facts
have the right to say what is best for the public.

Special knowledge does not justify this sort of arrogance and contempt. Those who have it have an obligation to
inform and teach the public. An ignorant public, a public that does not
understand, is a public that cannot participate effectively. Secrecy,
and the contempt it often breeds, undermines democratic participation.